ng of his kind
master, or of his master's daughter? Was the guest dreaming of his
narrow escape? or revolving plans beside which Felix's were but the
schemes of a rat in a drain? Perhaps Marie alone--for Susanne slept a
child's sleep of exhaustion--had her thoughts fixed on him, who only a
few hours before had been the centre of the household.

But such is life in troubled times. Pleasure and pain come mingled, and
men snatch the former from the midst of the latter with a trembling joy,
a fierce eagerness: knowing that if they wait to go a pleasuring until
the sky be clear, they may wait until nightfall.

When Adrian called his guest at cock-crow the latter rose briskly and
followed him down to the door. "Well, young sir," he said, pausing an
instant on the threshold, as he wrapped his cloak round him and took his
sheathed sword in his hand, "I am obliged to you. When I can do you a
service, I will."

"You can do me one now," the clerk replied bluntly. "It is ill work
having to do with strangers in these days. You can tell me who you are,
and to which side you belong."

"Which side? I have told you--my own. And for the rest," the soldier
continued, "I will give you a hint." He brought his lips near to the
other's ear, and whispered, "Kiss Marie--for me!"

The clerk looked up aflame with anger and surprise; but the other was
far gone striding down the street. Yet Adrian received an answer to his
question. For as the stranger disappeared in the gloom, he turned his
head and broke with an audacity that took away the listener's breath
into a well-known air,

"Hau! Hau! Papegots!
Faites place aux Huguenots!"

and trilled it as merrily as if he had been in the streets of Rochelle.

"Death!" the clerk exclaimed, getting back into the house, and barring
the door in a panic. "I thought so. He is a Huguenot. But if he take his
neck out of Paris unstretched, he will have the fiend's own luck, and
the Bearnais' to boot!"

II

When the clerk had re-mounted the stairs, he heard voices in the back
room. Felix and Marie were in consultation. The girl was a different
being this morning. The fire and fury of the night had sunk to a still
misery; and even to her, for his sister's sake, it seemed over-dangerous
to stay in the house and confront the rage of the mob. Mayenne might not
after all return: and in that case the Sixteen would assuredly wreak
their spite on all, however young or helpless, who might have had to do